


Lullaby

by withasideofangst



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: (past death only mentioned in passing and not explicitly), A lot of angst first though, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Children, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassins, Beating, Bullying, Cages, Electricity, Electrocution, F/M, Feels, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra are dicks, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, No underage sex happens in this fic, Past Character Death, Red Room, Sorry Not Sorry, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Torture, Well really no sex happens in this fic at all, other Avengers mentioned briefly but so little I didnt want to put them in the tags, poor babies, young!Bucky, young!Natalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:25:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4017952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withasideofangst/pseuds/withasideofangst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes is kidnapped by HYDRA in 1930.  He is five years old.</p>
<p>He is not the only child taken, but he is one of the youngest.</p>
<p>HYDRA takes them in batches, over a period of several months, disappearing them off the face of the earth.<br/>Then they begin to train them.</p>
<p>By 1989, the USSR is funding HYDRA, and they demand soldiers from them in return.</p>
<p>In response, HYDRA shifts its focus to creating unstoppable soldiers.  The serums they had developed on Bucky, their longest still-living captive, have paid off, and they have a supersoldier serum to rival one developed by the Americans in the 40s which eventually had produced in the man referred to as Captain America, before he supposedly died in a plane crash.</p>
<p>HYDRA’s main concern now is the training of their latest project, the so-called Widows.  The Winter Soldier is the perfect trainer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes is kidnapped by HYDRA in 1930.  He is five years old.

He is not the only child taken, but he is one of the youngest.

He never gets to be the partner of Captain America, who he might have known in another life.

All he is, is just another orphaned boy on the streets of New York City.

HYDRA takes them in batches, over a period of several months, disappearing them off the face of the earth, wiping any sign they ever existed from the records.

Then they begin to train them.

The kidnapped children are the first in a long line of victims of the Red Room, as it eventually became known as.

Bucky is one of those selected to test cryo freezing technology on.  With a fatality rate of 90%, the HYDRA injects him with several different kinds of serums to increase the durability of his body, then stick him in the cryo tank for five or six years at a time, and when each interval is over, he is defrosted and trained for about a year.

When his body finally hits the age of fifteen in 1989, he has been the victim of enough experimentation to have the constitution of a stronger-than-average soldier twice his age.

By that time, the USSR is funding HYDRA, and they demand soldiers from them in return.

In response, HYDRA shifts the focus of its experimentation to creating unstoppable soldiers.  The serums they had developed on Bucky, their longest still-living captive, have paid off, and they have a supersoldier serum to rival one developed by the Americans in the 40s which eventually had produced in the man referred to as Captain America, before he supposedly died in a plane crash.

HYDRA’s main concern now is the training of their latest project, the so-called Widows.  The Winter Soldier is the perfect trainer.

 


	2. Little Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, all speech between the asset and Natalia is in Russian.

The first time the Winter Soldier meets the Black Widow, he is, physically, fifteen, and she is five.

He has been HYDRA’s since 1930, when he was also five years old.

Experimented on and frozen in a cryo chamber on and off for the next fifty-nine years, he is the only one of several dozen orphans and street children kidnapped from America in the 30s and 40s.

He watches with steady eyes as several young girls, ranging in age from five to twelve, are shoved into cages and the doors locked.

One of the youngest is placed in the cage adjacent to his.

He wonders if his handlers think the girl’s age will stop him from killing her if she bothers him.  They weren’t pleased the last time (or any of the times before that), but the little brat wouldn’t stop _screaming_.

But this one is so quiet, he wouldn’t know she was there, if not for the flash of red hair illuminated by a crack of light slipping through the window set in the door.

He listens silently the first night, and while many of the other girls’ screams eventually morph into crying as the night inches forward, the girl with the red hair doesn’t make a sound the entire night.

He thinks, maybe, he’ll not kill this one.

Until he is ordered to.

\---

“Again,” a handler orders, and the asset smoothly leaps into motion, dodging the small blades of the Widows-in-training.  Every minute or two, one is too slow, and one of his fists connects.

If it is his flesh fist, they are knocked to the mat but can spring back fairly quickly.

If it is his metal fist, they are sent flying back into the mat or a wall, and several have to be dragged off by handlers to get bones set or concussions dealt with.  More than one is knocked out cold, and he’s still holding back.

After a metal fist connects with the red-haired girl, he is surprised to see her get up immediately, despite the bruise already forming on her cheek.

She is the last one standing, in the end, although she still ends up on the ground before the handlers tell him to stop.  This determination and skill has made her the handlers’ easy favorite, the asset knows.

They have ordered him, using the chair to demonstrate their seriousness, not to injure her while they are in their cages.

By this point, the asset likes her enough not to need the order.

\---

Six months in, the asset has still never spoken to the red-haired spider, and the silent streak probably would have continued if, one night, the girl wasn’t shuddering in the corner of her cage.  The asset frowned.

If it weren’t for the lack of sound, he would have thought she was crying.

“Little Spider,” he whispers in Russian, and instantly the girl freezes, then looks up slowly.

Her eyes are dry, and wary, but he can read the anger and fear in her eyes.

“What is wrong, Spider?” He whispers again.

She watches him with a gaze far older than her mere five years should allow, then after nearly a minute of staring, her shoulders deflate.

“Ballet,” she whispers.

The asset blinks.

“What?”

“I remember fighting you,” she whispers back, “I know that’s what we did today.  But I - I remember ballet lessons too.”

The asset frowns at her.

“Ballet...dancing?  You have not been dancing, Little Spider,” he says, confused.

She nods slowly.

“I know.  But I remember it, anyway.”

The asset stares for a long moment.

“I don’t remember things for very long.  They wipe my memories,” he says, and watches as the girl’s shoulders stiffen.  The thought doesn’t bother him, but watching the girl’s reaction, he wonders if it should.  If it did once, and he can no longer remember.

“Then they are changing mine,” she says, and the asset is not sure if it is a question, but he nods anyway.

He only realizes she is crying silently a minute later.

Unsure of what to do, the asset eventually shifts so his back is to the bars closest to her cage.

He hears her shift for a second, a hitch in her breathing, and he knows she is surprised he would expose his back to her.

Several girls have died by another’s hand in such a way.

But she doesn’t move, and neither does the asset.

Instead, he digs through what memories he has left, and fishes for ones he doesn’t, trying to remember how to calm a crying person.

Finally, he digs up a vague impression from a mission, of a woman singing to a crying child.

He hates the words of the song, soft and happy, but he likes the tune, so he changes the words.

_Can you, can you_

_Sleep little girl?_

_Close by, close by_

_Nightmares do whirl._

_Can you, can you_

_Sleep little girl?_

_No one's left_

_To save you._

He hears the girl stiffen behind him, and several other noises in the room cease, which tells him the others stopped moving to listen as well, but he doesn’t stop until he is done.

It is not a comforting song he comes up with, but comfort is not something for their world, he thinks.

In any case, the red-haired girl isn’t crying anymore.  Slowly she shifts until her back is against the bars of her cage, mirroring his posture, both of them sitting with their backs as close to each others’ as the small gap between their cages allows.

“Do you have a name?” She whispers, when he is done.

“The asset doesn’t have a name,” he replies automatically, then frowns.

Behind him, he thinks he hears the girl sigh softly.

Fishing in his brain again, he searches for anything familiar.  Scraps of dreams are all he finds.

“There are...three names, I think,” he whispers back after a pause, “but one...doesn’t sound like mine, and another is not…” he trails off.

After a moment, the girl makes a soft questioning noise.

“What is the third name?”

“James,” the asset says, even though the name isn’t Russian, and sounds wrong in his mouth.

For a moment, the girl doesn’t say anything.

“Yasha,” she says softly, and he blinks.

“Yasha?” It fits, he thinks.  The Russian form of James.

“Yes,” he says hesitantly.

Behind him, the girl slips a hand between the bars and touches his hair.  He twitches, but doesn’t pull away.

“Nice to meet you, Yasha.  My name is Natalia.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natalia speaks much more formally than most five-year-olds, I know, but she’s already had a hard life, plus six months with HYDRA, so I don’t think her behavior is that unbelievable.
> 
> This chapter/fic does make some large time leaps, because I don't think anyone really wants me writing a daily account of all the horrible things HYDRA does to its trainees.


	3. Suspicion

Two years pass slowly, and Yasha and Natalia become friends, as much as they still are able under HYDRA’s watch and training.

Each night, in their cages, they talk quietly until one or the other falls asleep.

For a long time, Natalia recites the conflicting memories she has of the day, and Yasha tells her which are true or false, as best he knows.

After a while, he stops replying, and she stops asking.  He never tells her it is because the lies she remembers are so much kinder than the truth, most days.  He suspects she knows.

Occasionally his memories will be wiped again, and he is returned to his cage dragged between two soldiers.  Sometimes he doesn’t remember the name his Little Spider had given him, but something must remain in the asset’s memory, because he never hurts her.  On those nights, she talks to him quietly until he falls asleep, then tries to sleep herself.

Near the end of the second year, there will be brief periods of time when all the girls are taken away for a week or two, and when they are returned, showered but exhausted, Natalia believes she actually is a ballerina for several hours, until her memories return slowly.

Sometimes they don’t return until halfway through a fight with Yasha the next day, and she ends up sprawled on the mat.

Yasha doesn’t correct her when she forgets him, allowing her the brief period of relief from her true life.  But they always remember each other in the end.

On his part, Yasha wonders if that is because their handlers do not know they should be targeting his memories of her directly, or if by this point, they can’t delete his memories of her.

He thinks the latter is far too sentimental to be true.

It is far more likely that their handlers simply don’t realize he has a friend.

After a wipe goes particularly badly one week, the asset is blindly swinging at anything and anyone in the base, and their handlers bring the Widows, as the girls are called, to try to stop him.

Eight are down and bleeding on the floor before Natalia arrives.

She manages to get close to him, dodging his fists and the arm of a metal chair which he rips off and flings at her.

Wrapping her legs around his metal arm in a move he’s been teaching her for the past month, she grits her teeth and withstands the beating he inflicts on her with his other arm, bringing her mouth close to his ear.

“Yasha,” she whispers, and he shudders involuntarily.  “Be still, because I do not think I can beat you, and you can kill me.”

His swings falter for a moment, as the name pulls up a few of his most recently wiped memories.

“ _Can you, can you, sleep little boy_?” she whispers, and the asset shudders to a stop and then drops to his knees.

Natalia releases him when the handlers come forward with their batons that can send electricity shuddering through one’s body.  She’s not stupid enough to try to stop them, even as Yasha screams and the smell of burnt flesh fills the room.

She stonily follows her handlers out as they congratulate her, and her downed fellow Widows are carried or dragged from the room.

Yasha’s screams haunt her dreams that night, and he isn’t brought back to his cage for nearly a week.  When he returns, he’s healed and stone-faced again, but he remembers his name when she whispers it.

They sleep with their backs as close as possible on opposing sides of the bars again that night.

\---

Another three years pass, and to celebrate the current batch of Widows’ five years of training, they are sent on their first missions.

Yasha stands at attention behind one of his handlers when the girls return, the unsuccessful ones beaten in front of the group in ways that shall leave no marks, he knows, and the successful ones praised for making their country proud.

He is relieved but not surprised that Natalia is in the second group of girls.  She is formally given the title of Black Widow despite being the youngest surviving Widow, and only she and Yasha notice the dark looks the other Widows send her way.

Knowing what to look for, Yasha is there to see when six of the eldest Widows pull Natalia away from the group and into an empty room.

He knows she is the best of the group, but against six girls, some of them twice her age (the same as his own, physically), even she will not succeed.

So he follows, and walks in to see four of the girls - the asset in him swells with pride that it took four, and not two, to hold her - pinning Natalia to the floor while the other two hit and kick her.

They all freeze when they notice him, including Natalia.

“This isn’t your mission,” one girl spits at him, “leave us.”

Yasha stands motionless, staring at the girl.  He has to suppress a small smile when she flinches and steps back instinctively under the weight of his gaze.

“You do not order me,” he says coldly, and all six girls flinch.

“I have this handled,” Natalia says cooly from the floor, and Yasha sees her plead with her eyes for a moment, for him to leave.

If he helps her, they will suspect, he knows.

He decides he doesn’t care.

It only takes seconds for the six to go down, flung into the walls or floor.  Two have broken bones, and if the crack he heard when one hit the wall is any indicator, he broke the neck of the eldest one.

Natalia gets up, only slightly unsteady on her feet.

“They will not forgive this,” she says softly.  “I do not want to see you hurt.”

He gently pats her on the head for a moment, then pushes her out the door, standing at attention among the bodies until his handlers arrive and drag him back to the chair.

When he is dragged again back to his cage that night, he doesn’t remember his name, but he still knows his Little Spider, and it is his turn to sing her to sleep despite his more serious injuries.

The lullaby has become a constant he cannot forget, no matter what else they take from him.

Only a few weeks later, Natalia is sent on another mission, and this time when she returns, Yasha is on his own mission.

He is gone for four days, and she never tells him that she can no longer sleep without him in the cage adjacent.

The dark circles under her eyes tell him anyway.

She does tell him that she cannot remember the mission, and while she knows she was sent to kill someone, her memories only hold ballet and a dance recital.

Yasha tells her nothing about his mission, which he remembers only until his next wipe, but he is still covered in blood when he is returned to his cage, and neither of them mention it.

He sings her to sleep anyway.

 


	4. Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, sorry. Only two more!

Over the next five years, both Natalia and Yasha are sent on missions more frequently, and Yasha spends more and more time in the chair until he forgets his name more frequently than he remembers it.

When it takes him several hours to remember Natalia name, one night, he hides his panic by singing her to sleep again.

He knows she can tell something is wrong, but so much is wrong in their lives, she doesn’t question him when he doesn’t talk about it.

That is the night he realizes he, Yasha, really is disappearing, and the asset is all that will remain.

They need to escape.

The number of Widows in the cages surrounding them dwindles as, slowly, others lose their lives on missions or are traded away to other departments of HYDRA.

By the time there are only four others remaining, Yasha only has enough of himself left to feel protective of his Little Spider, the few times they are both off-mission long enough to overlap, and he no longer remembers their lullaby, only recognizing it when she sings it to him.  Her own memories sometimes fade as well, but less slowly, as she has hidden her friendship with him better than he has.

She is fifteen and he is (in body) twenty-five, and it has been nearly a year since he could last remember their lullaby enough to sing it to her.

He overhears his handlers speaking more and more frequently of how their time of possessing the Winter Soldier - their name for him, he realizes - is nearing an end.  He recognizes the cryo chamber when it appears in the corner of the wiping room one day, and he is afraid.

It is 1999, and the turn of the century, they tell him, and he will help shape the new one.

But he knows his time is running out.  He knows well that when he is unfrozen again, his Little Spider may well be dead and gone.

When she has been gone for several months and her cage remains empty, he fears she may already be.

He runs after his next mission.

\---

He is utterly silent as he advances through the building, but he knows who the agent hunting him is. She is silent, and he only knows where she likely is because he trained her.

His handlers are predictable, so of course they send Natalia after him.

At least this proves she is alive.

He only hopes she is enough in her own mind that he can talk her into leaving with him.

Then his limp - caused by one of his handlers’ lucky shot -  makes itself known at the exact wrong moment, and he stumbles directly onto a creaky floorboard.

He freezes, and he can feel the cold metal waiting behind him without hearing a sound. He turns, and he knows instantly this is not _his_ Natalia.

This is the Black Widow they - and he - turned her into. And she always brings down her target.

Yasha knows he is caught; he cannot bring himself to kill Natalia and she will never let him run otherwise, so he stand there as she calmly points the gun at him until their handlers arrive, beat him, and drag him back to his cage.

The next time he sees Natalia, she does not remember, and he never tells her.

The agents put a tracking device in his metal arm, and he knows Natalia has one in her left shoulder after she has an odd bump there the same day.

He will never escape, he thinks, as Natalia talks quietly in his ear when neither of them can sleep.

But he just might be able to save _her_.

 


	5. Run

It takes him nearly three months to set it up - a long time by his standards, but slowed by the time it takes him to re-realize his goal each time is mind is wiped again.

He manages to steal supplies for the escape, enough information from their handlers’ files and _proof_ to buy safety with any country, fake passports (those were the hardest to get, without their handlers finding out), and civilian clothes.

He even manages to steal a motorbike, and he hopes Natalia knows how to drive.  (He had been taught on a mission, and guesses she would have been too.)

It takes another two months before they are both off-mission and in their cages at the same time, and he remembers enough of himself to know his goal, while she remembers him too.

Finally, after the Winter Soldier kills someone Yasha doesn’t know, but who most have been important by the way their handlers were reacting, he has his moment.

They are both in their cages, but otherwise alone, the other surviving Widows out on missions.

She is preparing to sleep, and is about to start singing their lullaby to him when he begins, instead.  Only slightly differently than usual.

_Can you, can you_

_Sleep little girl?_

_I shall guard your_

_Dreams little girl._

_Run now, run now_

_And sleep little girl._

_No one's left_

_To harm you._

In response to her baffled look, he simply hands her a note through the bars, and whispers how to find the stashed supplies and the bike hidden near the base.

She looks at him uncomprehendingly.

"Yasha? Are you confused? Do you remember who you are, who I am?" she asks quietly, and he winces.

She thinks he has lost his memories again. Or his mind.

"I know who I am," he says quietly. "I am Yasha, and I am the Winter Soldier."

She stiffens, but makes no sound, eyes wide.

"And I am going to save you, Natalia, my Little Spider."

She is staring at him as if he has sprouted horns from his head.

"You cannot save me. Neither of us can ever be saved."

Yasha threads his metal fingers through the bars and grabs her arm, holding her wrist.  She doesn’t flinch, trusting him. After a moment, she turns her grip so they are gripping wrists, palms together.

He can read the resolute sadness in every line of her face. Too many already, for her age. He doesn't want to see more form.

"Natalia, there may be red in your ledger," he began, and her eyes flickered in surprise at the phrase, "but mine is dyed in red. I don't remember much, but I know mine is soaked far more than yours. And I don't want to see you become me. I can never leave. But _you_ can."

"What are you -"

Her question is drowned out by the sound of screeching metal when he takes back his wrist and reaches through the bars to pry the door of his cage open, then does the same to hers, crushing it with his metal fist.

He _really_ likes the arm’s latest upgrade, no matter how much he screamed while they put it in.

Then he reaches out quickly, there is a flash of metal, and the tracker is cut out of her arm.

She gapes at him for a moment before reining in her expression, her arm bleeding slightly.

"You could have mentioned being able to bend metal," she said calmly, but Yasha knows her enough to see past it, to the shock and fear she is hiding beneath.

He hands her a strip of cloth to bandage her arm.

"They upgraded it again last month. Added a few safeguards too, so we need to hurry before they take me out."

She opens her mouth to speak but he shushes her and leads her out of the base, having long-since memorized the ways out.

They almost are outside when the alarm sounds.

Yasha foregoes subtlety and mashes through the last wall, and leads Natalia to the equipment.

She puts on the pack and sits on the bike, but Yasha doesn't follow.

"Come with me," she says quietly, "I need you," and he knows how much it costs her to say it.

"You don't, Little Spider," he says quietly, aware of the agents approaching quickly - far too many, even for the Winter Soldier.

"I love you," she says, and he is caught off-guard. It takes him a precious moment to recover.

The corner of his mouth twitches into what he hopes looks like a smile. "Love is for children, Natalia," but as he sees her face turn to stone, he regrets it.

"But I love you too," he adds, and then tosses her one of the guns he'd taken off a silently-dispatched guard. She catches it easily.

"Get as far as you can, then change into the clothes in the pack. Stay under the radar for a few months, then pick someone and use them for safety. Choose a new name. Stick with the mercenaries, change every few months. You can trust them to go where the money is. Just keep ahead of them and don't turn your back. I'll hold off these guys.  And, Natalia...if you see me again, don’t hesitate to take me out."

He doesn't wait for a reply, turning and running back towards the sounds of approaching agents.

He hears the bike speed off just as he shoots the first one.

It takes more than two dozen to bring him to his knees, and a dozen more to send him finally to the ground.

As they shock him with their batons, and several kick any exposed part of his body, he can't stop laughing. From the looks on their faces, it must sound terrifying.

_Natalia is free_ , he thinks, as they drag his unresponsive body into an upgraded wiping chair.

The agents strap him down, and the chair arms have metal cuffs strong enough to keep his metal arm down.

His handlers come in and ask where the Black Widow is going.

He laughs in their faces, cursing them, and repeats his name - Yasha - and shouts that she is out of their reach until one handler gives an order and they slide something against the sides of his head.

Someone slips a mouth guard between his teeth and comes away with bloody fingers.

Then the machine is switched on, and there is fire in his blood, in his bones, but mostly in his head.

But Natalia is free.

By the time, two years later, a 17-year-old Natalia, now Natasha, meets a certain bow-wielding sniper, Yasha is truly dead, the Winter Soldier now the only thing in his place.

The next time the Winter Soldier meets the Black Widow, he is on a mission and he shoots through her without ever recognizing her.

The third time, he shoots her again, before the man in red, white and blue stops him.

The fourth time, he turns up looking like a homeless man outside Avengers Tower.

She is the first one to approach.

She holds out a hand and places it carefully on the bicep of his metal arm, steering him into the tower.

They sit quietly with their backs against the wall of a clear-walled room, and he stares at the side of her head while she lets him, reading something on a screen she holds in her hand.

“Little Spider,” he mutters finally, and she jerks in surprise.

“Yasha,” she replies, and the corner of her mouth twitches upwards.

“SHIELD is not exactly what I meant by ‘find someone,’” he says, and her mouth twitches into a bitter smile.

She doesn’t reply, though, instead reaching up slowly and, when he doesn’t stop her, she begins combing her fingers through his hair.

Eventually he rests his head on her shoulder.  She doesn’t seem to mind that this means his metal arm is resting against her side.

He falls asleep with her fingers still in his hair.

 


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on their aging: I’m not entirely sure what Natasha and Yasha/Bucky's ages are in the Avengers, so I went backwards from their approximate ages in 2012, factoring in cryo time for Bucky/Yasha. I have it so Natalia is 15 in 1999, and body-wise, Yasha is 25. (Between 1999 and 2012, he is then out of cryo enough to bodily age 5 years.) Just in case you were interested.

Three months after Yasha comes to live with the Avengers, he is still slowly reclaiming his memories.  He has vague impressions of her and of their time with HYDRA, but very little is concrete.

He spends most of his time with Natalia, now Natasha, except when she encourages him to bond with the rest of the team.

He gets along well with the archer, Barton, who likes to pull pranks but understands when he needs silence.  Natalia - _Natasha_ \- tells him Barton had his own experience with mind control, and they both leave it at that.

He was initially tense around the two scientists, Banner and Stark, because they reminded him of the technicians at HYDRA, but he quickly learns Banner’s quiet calm and kindness doesn’t trigger flashbacks, and Stark is far too loud and emotive to trigger any memories, either.

He avoids spending time alone with Captain America - Steve Rogers - because the man is everything an American soldier tries to be, which just makes Yasha realize how different he is.  Rogers tries to be his friend, and Yasha likes him around the others and knows he is a good leader, but the man is too _good_ for Yasha to relax around.

The team tells him about Thor, the god of thunder (he still has a hard time wrapping his mind around that), but he has yet to meet him, as he spends most of his time in London, with his girlfriend.

Yasha has just finished a movie with the others which makes everyone else cry while he tries to remind himself that he shouldn’t be looking for the best kill angles on the screen, when the ending tune reminds him of something.

He stiffens, trying to draw out the memory, and he is vaguely aware that the others are trying to watch him subtlely.

He has just pulled up the memory and is humming the tune he recalled when Natasha walks in the room and freezes, staring at him.

Confused at the look on her face, he stares back, then watches as she walks over so she can kneel down and sing into his ear, fingers running through his hair.  She presses a kiss to the back of his head when she is done.

_Can you, can you_

_Sleep little boy?_

_I shall guard your_

_Dreams little boy._

_Can you, can you_

_Sleep little boy?_

_No one’s left_

_ To harm you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, thank you for toughing this one out with me!
> 
> If you're following my other fics, you might have seen me mention I've been busy this week (which is why one YODT missed an update or two), but I'll resume writing more buffer chapters this weekend to make up for it, and will keep posting regularly. If you aren't following, thank you for reading this one, and I hope you liked it!


End file.
